


All Hell

by swinchests



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Character Study, Demon Deals, Episode: s02e22 All Hell Breaks Loose, Gen, Grieving Dean Winchester, Post-Episode: s02e21 All Hell Breaks Loose, Season/Series 02, implied wincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27644279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swinchests/pseuds/swinchests
Summary: Twenty-two years, and he lets his guard down for ten seconds. Game over.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	All Hell

**Author's Note:**

> Feels kind of silly to be posting about season 2 the day after the finale, but here I am.
> 
> Please note that Sam/Dean is implied

It takes several minutes to get Dean off the ground. Bobby stands over him at length, wringing his hands, his grisly voice softened as he tries to cajole and reason him into the car. Dean doesn’t budge for a long time. Can’t. He keeps holding onto Sam, withstanding the burn in his arms and his thighs as the entire weight falls onto him. Inhaling shampoo and spice and cold sweat; everything slowly getting colder. It reminds him of the January that he let Sam play outside in the snow too long, and come back nearly frozen solid. Dean had warmed him up, toweled away the ice from his hair, the guilt in his gut certain that he should have expected, should have brought him in sooner…

His fingers don’t let up on their grip, but he finds the will to grind out— _“help me.”_ To let Bobby steady him when he climbs to his numb feet, but not share the burden of his brother’s weight. It’s his own to bear.

The car feels like a grenade, half a second after the pin gets ripped out. Bobby doesn’t say anything anymore — not even when Dean crawls into the backseat with the body, and pulls the head down on his shoulder. There’s nothing to be said about it. The highway is dark and deserted out here in the boonies — in the middle of nowhere, where the end of the world is beginning. Bobby drives fast and unhindered, and Dean is still and quiet enough to look like they’re both dead. And in any way that matters, they are.

He lost Dad, and now he’s lost Sam. It’s wrong. Sam is not supposed to feel like this, stagnant and limp and so cold. He’s always run warm. Fucking furnace, Sam. And always moving, always curling up his shoulders or touching his hair or thinking so loud that Dean can watch it all play out on his face. Now, his expression is too blank. Dean can’t look. He pushes dirty bangs out of his face — Sam needs a damned haircut...

If he had been there sixty seconds sooner. Been fifty feet closer. If he hadn’t let his guard down for the ten seconds he’d celebrated finding his missing brother…

That was all it had taken. Twenty-two years, and he lets his guard down for ten seconds. Game over.

Bobby’s lips crack dryly when they part. “Dean…”

“Don’t.”

His breath is still too hard, and shaking. It fills the space inside the car. His face is warm, wet, and his eyes sting so sharply. If Bobby wasn’t here, he’d be screaming— and if he lets himself speak now, he still might. He catches the soft glances reflecting at him in the rearview, but doesn’t acknowledge. Bobby doesn’t try again.

They don’t go to Sioux Falls. The closest safe place is an old hunting cabin that Bobby hasn’t kept up in years; now a crumbling shack, but out of the way. There’s a pit in his gut when they pull up, when the car rumbles to a stop. He doesn’t know what’s expected of him, now. Has no idea what he’s supposed to do now that… He never brought himself to consider what he’d do if he failed. When Dad had told him that he’d have to kill Sam, he thought that at least put him in control of the situation. He thought he’d be able to work on his own terms, and didn’t fathom that the timer was already set and ticking. Procrastinating failed. He didn’t know it had already come to life or death.

Bobby hesitates, but then gets out of the car. . “We don’t have to stay here. Just thought it’d be smart to hole up for an hour or two, at least; make sure the coast is clear.” They had, after all, recently let a large handful of hell out into the bare midwest. Dean shuffles, pulls Sam’s weight off of him enough to weasel an arm out, open the door on his own. He hikes Sam over his shoulder fireman style, pointedly not looking at his face, pointedly not expecting a laugh of confusion or a _get the fuck off me, Dean._ Sam’s boots hang from loose ankles, caked in mud, pine needles hanging from the laces. They should be kicking at his shins right now. Instead, the jingle of Bobby’s keys sound like they’re laughing at him. “It ain’t much,” Bobby warns in a mumble as the door creaks open. As if Dean has ever asked for much, to begin with.

The air inside the cabin is even colder than outside, as if isolation has jaded it. Even the logs are covered in dust. There is a front room with a crummy kitchenette, and a bedroom behind, sparsely decorated in Bobby’s indifference to decor. A threadbare brown rug slumps in the center of the front room, moth eaten to the point that it looks like a pile of yarn. A swarm of ants huddle in a corner where something light-colored and sticky — beer, more than likely — was spilled on the floor. The curtains are a sun-faded shade of pink, and the armchair is a worn shade of blue. It feels dead, here. Dean marches to the dark bedroom, Bobby on his heels. He sets Sam down on the bare mattress. His head falls heavily, unceremoniously, and his legs crumble to the side. Dean curses under his breath. The back of his neck twinges with Bobby’s watchful eyes on him, as if a muttered _fuck_ has broken the spell of his silence. He doesn’t look back. It takes several hard tugs and ginger touches to straighten out all six plus feet of Sam, but he takes his time. When he’s done, Sam’s shirt is unwrinkled, and his hair is all in place. His legs stick out straight in front, the dirty boots anchoring him down.

At some point, Bobby disappears into the front room. He comes back with two Labatts, warm but unopened, and if the state of the cabin is any indication, likely expired. Dean’s stomach is churning, but he chugs it anyway. He doesn’t care if he pukes. When it’s gone, he stares dully at Bobby, daring him to speak.

After a long moment, he works up the will. “Kid, I’m sorry.” It falls flat, because it’s a stupid thing to say, and the emptiness of it tightens his throat. The old man hems, gaze shifting between the corpse on the bed and the corpse holding the empty beer can. “I’ll, uh. I’ll put out a hunter APB on that military kid. Do you know who that was?”

“No clue. I’ve never seen him before.” His voice is tenuous as it creaks into motion, flat and cracking. It had been such a blur. The relief that Dean had felt put a ring of gold around Sam in his vision. It blinded him to the figure creeping up from the background. Dean saw dark skin, and red eyes, and the glint of a knife in the air. The poetic irony pisses him off. Sam spends all this time running from the devil he knows, and gets stabbed in the back by the devil he doesn’t.

“It’s okay. We got a good look at him. I’ll put out the description. Someone’s gotta recognize the guy.”

“Uh huh.” Dean’s mouth tastes like cotton and bile. It had been so fast, and then so slow— a coffee drip of a way to go. His hands on Sam’s face and Sam’s eyes working so hard to find him, trying to make eye contact, before turning into marbles. How was Dean supposed to protect him from this?

Quiet falls on them for another long moment, with Bobby shifting uneasily on noisy floorboards. Dean’s focus lands squarely on the small window in the far wall. The pane is caked in dirt and bird shit, the curtains another iteration of that god awful pink. Even holding his head up to look is cumbersome, his brain heavy and flat and dead. This is what Dad felt like for thirty years. Bobby clears his throat again. “Let me make a few phone calls. I’ll get us something to eat. And then we’ll… we’ll make a plan. Okay?”

“Okay,” he says. And when Bobby’s car is out of earshot, he runs to the front door, and vomits all over the porch.

• • •

It takes a little over an hour, but Bobby returns with Arby’s sandwiches and two large Dr. Peppers. The smell of roast beef makes Dean wince, and the look of it speaks to him of pallid, cold flesh. He eats without tasting. Bobby could have scooped gravel off the road and fed it to him in a bowl for all that it matters, but Dean thanks him anyway. The sun is gone, and inside the cabin, the damp air hugs him coldly. There is no electricity, but they make a small fire from twigs in the front room. They eat mostly in silence.

Three times, Bobby takes large, pointed breaths, as if he wants to speak, and then forfeits. “It seemed quiet, when I went out. I think the coast is clear for us to head home tonight.” He says at long last, tersely hopeful. Dean says nothing, chewing stale curly fries without tasting. “...Or, if you’d rather bunk here, that’s okay. No harm in staying put for awhile, either. We’ll just have to, uh, cut down some trees at daylight.”

“This fire’s fine,” Dean insists.

Bobby hesitates. “We might need a bit of firewood… and we’ll need to build a pyre.”

Dean pauses, Arby's sauce squelching inside the sandwich he holds. His throat closes, reveling in the way deja vu smacks him in the face for the umpteenth time. _He’s just been down this road._ He was just here, building a pyre for his dad, so recently that his arms still ache from the labor. Less than a fucking year ago. Suddenly, his grip is so tight that his fingers are tearing through the brioche bun, exposing the bread's yellow underbelly.

At the hospital, they put a white sheet over Dad’s face, and that was it. Sam’s face was still purple, lip fat and bruised from smashing into the Impala’s steel dashboard. Dean had just climbed out of his hospital bed, and was on his feet for this first time in days. His knees wobbled like a baby giraffe, and Sam braced him. The doctor asked which funeral home they wanted the body delivered to. Sammy did some quick research — always better at thinking on his feet —and found a funeral home that was close by. Then, they snuck into the morgue in the middle of the night to retrieve their Dad. They did most of the preparations themselves, too. The body didn't need much clean-up. Dad had looked like he was asleep, like he should have been snoring thunderously like he always did, but he wasn’t. They spent three hours building the structure, and when the time came, it took the both of them to haul the body onto the pyre. Sam lit the match. Dean didn’t talk to him for days.

Well, he refuses. He absolutely goddamn refuses to go down this road again. Not again. Not yet.

“No.”

“Son—”

“I’m not your son.”

“Dean. It’s the best way to make sure that—”

“Make sure that what?” Dean cuts him off with a dead glare and a set jaw. His eyes are burning still, bright red. He lifts his brow in expectation. “Make sure that the demons don’t get him? That they don’t turn him into a meat suit and go walkin’ around town? Make sure they don’t take him out into the middle of _Fucksville USA_ for their own sick games? ‘Cause it looks to me like they already got their jollies.”

“I know that. But at the same time, there’s a war starting here. And Sam — sorry to say it, but dead or alive — he’s a weapon.”

“He’s not a _weapon_ , he’s my brother.” Dean is spitting now, the tang of mustard on his lips and on his chin. He might hurl again. He shoves the sandwich and fries off his lap and onto the ground. Doesn’t want anything from Bobby at the moment. His face is stony when he stands, looming over the dark room. His shadow flickers behind him in the bedroom doorway, a threat in the fire light, as if it’s sheltering the cadaver from any more harsh words. It’s his brother. Sam. He laughs, icy. “Why doesn’t anyone get that?” Bobby is looking up at him, stupefied. His skin itches. “I don’t give a fuck about a war. I didn’t ask for a war; Sam didn’t ask for a war. That’s my fucking brother in there, and I’m not letting him just — go up in smoke.”

Bobby stands, too. There is a new set to his chin, soft but firm. Standing stock-still and militant, Dean feels exposed. “…Okay.” It’s even softer, like talking to a child, as perhaps Bobby thinks he is. “Okay. Well, let’s go home, then. No use sitting here all night. Let’s get our heads on straight.”

“I’m not going.” The _with you_ tacked on the end is implied. Bobby’s forehead wrinkles with hurt, but what does he expect? “I’ll stay here with Sam.”

“...Okay.” Bobby lingers on the word all the same, but lets it go with a breath. He stoops down to pick up the food wrappers and loose curly fries that are scattered on the ground. “I’ll come by tomorrow, then.”

“Yeah.”

He leaves for the second time as the sun rises. Dean paces the hardwood floor for a while after. Sam doesn’t pace, but Dean hears him anyway. Always clicking his tongue, always sourly shaking his head. _You shouldn’t yell at Bobby like that. He’s only trying to help._ He sighs. “Shut up, Sam.”

• • •

Bobby doesn’t come back right away. Maybe he’s savvy enough to give a little bit of space. It’s been more than a day since he slept last, but Dean doesn’t sleep. He finds more lukewarm beer in the tepid fridge and swallows three for breakfast, hoping to wash the lingering taste of roast beef out of his gullet. The light brings more definition to the details inside the cabin. Rust is sprawling in the kitchen sink, the brightest color in the palette here, and a film of gunk coats the window sills. The details of Sam’s face are becoming clearer, too. His skin is pallid, sunken and gray, the shadows under his eyes and cheekbones a blooming purple. He looks stiff. Even his jacket seems brittle and frozen. Dean drags the wooden kitchen chair into the bedroom so he can sit there and watch Sam's flesh settle into clay.

It has been a week since Dean has seen him last, through the streaks of rain on his windshield and through the blinds of the diner window Sam had ducked into. So much has happened since that he doesn’t even remember what state they had been in. He remembers Black Sabbath’s _Master of Reality_ cassette was coming to an end. When Sam opened the car door, he had smelled warm cinnamon and nutmeg and tasted tart apples on his tongue. He had salivated as he shouted — _bring pie!_ — and settled down snugly into the leather bench as Sam disappeared from sight. It wasn’t really about the pie. He did want it; but the request was more for the sake of just riling Sam up. It’s the order of things between them, his prerogative as a big brother. Sam’s job is to have a constant bee in his bonnet, and Dean’s job is to eat junk and play loud cassettes.

Dean waited. Ozzy stopped singing, and he let the stereo buzz; he had promised Sam that he had dibs on the next pick. The radio static hitched too late. He should have noticed sooner that it was taking too long for Sam to return.

Would there have been a way to stop the demons from snatching him? Was it too late the moment he parked the car? Were they inside waiting for him, or did they follow him inside? If Dean had gone into the diner instead, would they have jumped him? Or would they have jumped Sam in the car? The questions have been making his head spin for a week, and he’ll never have the answers now. The last time he saw Sam, he was standing tall and fluid, with a glint in his eye and a world-weary scoff in his throat. He was so bright, so pink-cheeked and touchable, and Dean had felt so warm. So at home, in the parking lot of a strange diner in a strange city.

“You didn’t have to get me that apple pie, Sammy, if it was gonna be so much trouble.” He rasps out a laugh at his own joke, the sound garbled. His mouth tastes warm and rancid, feels like licking cement. The air heats up with the sun, and Dean leans over, unzips his brother’s jacket so he won’t be uncomfortable. Sam runs so hot, anyway.

He’s going to destroy _Master of Reality._ He doesn’t even really like Black Sabbath that much, anyway; it’s Dad’s music. Right now, he can’t remember what kind of music he does like.

If Sam had come here of his own volition, he would be pissed that he couldn’t take a shower. He’s had a thing about cleanliness since tasting the luxury of a college campus, and a hot shower is always the first thing he wants. He gets mad now when the motel they stop at. There is dirt underneath Sam’s typically well-washed fingernails, smeared between his fingers, on his forehead… it’s clumped in his hair in spots, too, making Dean wonder where he laid his head the past several nights. His jacket is bulging, and upon sticking his hands in the pockets Dean reveals crumpled napkins and a bic lighter. Nothing special; no clues as to what the fuck happened to him or what yellow-eyes wanted, with him or any of the others.

Dean gets a rag from the kitchen, wets it, and starts wiping the caked mud off of Sam’s skin. The blood has dried in the seam of Sam’s mouth, and he scrubs extra hard there to remove the redness, apologizing all the way. He carefully scrapes the dirt out from under his fingers. His brother never has such unsightly hands. Sam was holding his elbow when they found him, and Dean inspects it gingerly. Likely sprained. He lifts his brother up and peels the shirt away from the blood that has dried there, unsticking fabric from the skin. The cut is a swirling, dizzy mix of black and purple and maroon. He cleans the wound carefully; a bit embarrassed, keenly aware of how Sam would be bitching if he knew. _Let go, Dean._

Let go. Like he did when he was five, learning to ride his bike without any training wheels. Like he did when he was thirteen, and wanted Dean to quit messing with his hair. Like he did when he was eighteen, and Dean didn’t want him to get on the bus to California.

“It was supposed to be the three of us again.” He says it out loud without realizing, determined to get rid of the red stains on Sam’s white skin. “You, me, and Dad. I don’t… honestly, Sam, I don’t even know why I wanted it that way. You never got along. Hell, by the end you couldn’t quit yelling at each other for long enough to have one goddamned meal. But the three of us… that’s what Mom would have wanted.” Sam never cared much for what Mom would have wanted, regardless. How could he? “I don’t know why you couldn’t get on board.”

He hesitates, considering what Sam would say to this. _You do know why._

“Fine; it’s not only your fault. I don’t know why Dad couldn’t get on board, either.” Of course Sam had to go to college, he knows. He was so smart. Too smart. Then again, it was bold of Sam to assume that the two of them would keep on hunting together, as if the unit of them was not molecularly changed in his absence. He could never appreciate that he was the glue holding the whole fucking operation together.

If they three had stuck together, the way that Dean wishes, would any of this have happened? If Sam hadn’t gone to college, if Dad hadn’t disappeared for so long that Dean started to panic? It hadn’t occurred to any of them that the demon might have wanted them to split apart, but it seems so obvious now.

“I’m sorry I brought you back into this. I just figured I’d rather have you and Dad screaming than… just me.” Which is what it had mostly been since Sam disappeared. “I’m sorry I got so pissed at you when Dad died, too. I was… pretty fucked up.” A lot like the way he’s fucked up now.

It’s too little, too late, and he’s aware of it, absolutely convinced that his brother would tell him as much. _You’re supposed to be honest with people when they’re alive , Dean._ “I know. You’re right; I should have said something earlier. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me, either, Sammy.”

He had attempted to bear his soul in River Grove, Oregon, with the demon virus a few months back. He had thought then that they were an hour or two from Sam mauling him to death, so he isn’t sure that he gets any points for bravery. He'll never tell the whole truth, after all. Yet, it was about as cohesive as he knew how to be. _I’m tired, Sam. I’m not sure I want to go on._ The following _especially without you_ went unsaid, between them, but was understood. He didn’t care if Sam hissed and slammed his fists in behest. When they walked out of that room, Croatoan-free, he was relieved for Sam’s life more than for his own. He lived on borrowed time, anyway.

Saying these things now is fruitless effort, and he knows it, but won’t stop.

“Sorry I called you a pain in the ass, too. I’m sorry, Sam.”

Time passes in spurts, in swallows of increasingly expired alcohol. He holds his hand over his brother’s smooth belly for minutes at a time, waiting to feel breath, convincing himself that it’s moving and Sam is faking. The more stuffed with cotton his head becomes, the angrier it makes him. He’s a real asshole to be running him so ragged.

At some point, the phone rings. He jolts at the name on the screen. “Ellen?”

“Hi, Dean.” Jo’s voice sounds like a breath of fresh air, the kind that, to Dean, is sort of a slap in the face. “I, um. I heard from Bobby. Me ‘n my mom wanted to tell you we’re sorry.”

He’s tired of hearing that already. There’s a twist in his chest, though, and his throat closes too tight to be mean. “It’s… okay. I’m sorry about the roadhouse. Your mom’s okay?”

“Yeah. She was out buying pretzels, completely missed… whatever happened. The firefighters don’t know yet whether it was electrical, or…” She trails off much the way Dean has ended his sentences as of late. The firefighters won’t, but he knows. The pile of rubble he and Bobby had entered yesterday stunk so much of sulfur that it made his head ache. “So I came back to help make arrangements. But, uh. I just wanted to tell you that Bobby gave us the description of the guy. We’re talking to every hunter we can find to try to get a name.”

She sounds grim and steady as a tombstone. Dean can picture the firm set to her delicate chin right now, the tight fold to her arms over her chest. No one has any clue as to who that soldier was, or why he’d stabbed his baby brother in the back. Then again, does it matter? He grunts, and then it’s quiet for a moment.

“Uh, okay. I’m not sure that he is a hunter. A lot of those kids weren’t. They were just people.” After all, not everyone’s Daddy goes off the deep end. He thinks of Ava, who was engaged, buying a house, and who Sam had bent over backward trying to save. She was ordinary. Got twenty-two years of normalcy before a demon snuffed her out. “He’s military, or ex-military. That’s all we have for sure.”

“All right. I wish there was more we could do. If… If Ash were here, he’d have hacked into MEPS already, you know?” A wet laugh punctuates feverishly, and ends on a choking note. Dean doesn’t think the rock in his belly can sink any lower.

“It wouldn’t do any good,” is the best he can offer.

“We can track his ass as soon as we put a name to the face.”

“Sure.” It’s just that his skin is crawling at the idea of sitting around, waiting weeks or months for a name, while Sam… rots. He’ll kill the kid when he finds him, but it won’t do any good. He knows this too, the game of tracking down the thing that killed the thing you loved. This is a very old song and dance, and Dean is so fucking tired. He'd do anything to be wrapped up in honky tonk music and bar peanuts and cold tap beer, hanging off the edge of a barstool to catch a glimpse of Jo’s thin spine above her jeans. Alcohol makes Sam’s ears and cheeks turn bright pink, makes his eyes glassy, makes him loose and warm. He’d give anything to lean into Sam’s side, to be swallowed by the buzz of the bar and Sam's big hand on his shoulder. “Yeah. Keep me posted, if anyone hears anything. I’m glad your mom’s okay.”

“What are you gonna do?” It sounds rushed out, like it’s a secret question, or like maybe she knows she shouldn’t ask. Dean sighs heavily. His breath tastes stale and sour. Fuck if he knows.

Take care of Sam. He’s going to take care of Sam. That’s his job, same as always. It doesn’t change because Sam isn’t breathing.

“I’m gonna track down that yellow-eyed motherfucker and pump him full of lead.”

She’s quiet once more. “Be careful, Dean. We don’t wanna lose you both.”

They already have. They did the second that Sam hit the ground. “Bye, Jo.”

• • •

Night comes back for him. Dean thinks about death echoes, trapped in the sordid loop of their own demise. He pictures Sam as an echo, holding his elbow, calling his name over and over, falling to his knees over and over. Are echoes smart enough to hear, aware enough to see? He muses over spirits that attach themselves to objects of importance. What would Sam want to cling to? The crumbled tissues in his pockets aren’t worthy to hold him. What is?

When he musters the courage, he’ll go back to Cold Creek. He’ll guard the spot where Sam fell, all night, in case an echo appears. He knows how to spook it out of its loop; but would he want to? If it stays there for all eternity, at least he’d have a place to go to hear his brother call his name, two seconds before dissolution. Much like the years that he kept away from him in Palo Alto.

A few weeks ago, he’d made a promise to Sam that he’d kill him if he had to. He’d sworn against his will, Sam drunk as a skunk and breathing tequila fire into his face. You have to watch out for me, he said. _If I ever turn into something that I’m not…_ He resented the way Sam had twisted his words on him, taken Dean’s life work and turned it into the exact opposite of what it was supposed to mean. He’d put his hands on Dean’s face, thumb pressed into the corner of his mouth, and thanked him for promising to put him down.

 _I can’t save anyone,_ Sam had said. Dean didn’t remind him that he had saved his life twice now, since they’d been on the road together. He supposed that didn’t count. Sam’s hands on his face had made him sweat, made his stomach flip dangerously. He felt close to the edge of a perilous cliff that he didn't want to name. He chose not to think about it then, and chooses not to think about it now.

He finishes the beer, but he finds a half-drunk bottle of Jameson under the sink, and moves on. He’s been drunk most of the day now, and his stomach is full and swirling poisonously. He thinks to himself, _this is it._ You always wanted to be your dad. Now you get the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Would it have happened like this if Dad had been here? If Dean had gone gentle into that good night after the car wreck like he was supposed to, and Dad hadn’t traded himself away to be in Dean’s place, would Sam be alive? Would Dad have found him a few minutes faster, run harder, actually gotten a shot at the guy in the army uniform? There’s a necklace that hangs under the collar of Dean’s shirt, and it burns his chest, the tiny brass horns stabbing his skin. If he had a say in it, he’d put Sam there.

The fire goes out, and he notices its dying breath too late. There is nothing left to burn, and it’s raining outside; by the morning, the wood will be wet and moldy. Yet, it feels like a victory. At least Bobby can’t come back and blaspheme about a pyre. There’s a leak in the roof, and droplets are creeping in sporadically, dripping down the walls onto a puddle on the floor. Sam’s skin becomes especially clammy, a thin sheen of cold dew resting on his forehead, as if dripping with sweat. As if dying is hard work. He throws his empty beer cans into the fire, hoping it will light, without much avail. He contemplates whether his leather coat would burn. It sits in a pile on the chair like a veiled threat. And yet, despite how cold and wet he is, he doesn’t dare.

In the morning, Bobby returns. The truck he drives is boisterous, the loudest thing Dean has heard in days. He’s towing the Impala behind it, which is clearly a peace offering. He brings fried chicken, also an olive branch, and a bottle of cola— no liquor. The wrinkle in Bobby’s forehead caves deeper when he inhales. Dean had simply forgotten about the smell inside the cabin, certainly musty and ringing with something _else_ . A jagged, defensive pit caves in his belly. He isn’t sure if he’s still angry at Bobby, or at the intrusion itself. Perhaps it’s just a relief to have something to tether his anger to.

Sam admittedly, is turning a sickly blue, blooming from his lips and the very tips of freshly cleaned, stiffened fingers. Bobby quibbles about it, won’t look directly at the stiff statue laid upon the bed. Dean sees him stealing glances in his peripherie, though, however infuriatingly. Sam’s jeans and jacket have flattened in the damp air, hair laid with condensation. There’s a grotesque bloat in his belly, and in the hands that lay above his chest, so swollen that it looks like he’s stretching his fingers wide. Rigor mortis is at its worst in the first forty-eight hours, but it has a passing stage. The passing is on its way. Bobby is worried about all the wrong things.

 _Something big is going down,_ he says again. _End-of-the-world big._

Good, Dean thinks spitefully. It’ll save him some effort.

What reason has he to save the world? He had not signed up for a global reconnaissance mission; neither had Sam. His father had not trained him to save the world. He had trained him to kill monsters, one at a fucking time. The air is so thick and heavy. Bobby’s nostrils flare with each inhale, like he cannot stop noticing, and Dean cannot stop noticing the reaction. “I want you to come with me,” Bobby pleads, voice low.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, raw but firm. It feels like the hundredth time. “Just go.”

When he doesn’t move, Dean shoves him. His palms sting dumbly, like his very skin can’t believe what it's doing. Bobby’s expression is dumbfounded, too, but Dean doesn’t know why. Bobby is smart, and could have seen this reaction coming. Perhaps even better than Dean could. Why else would he have tiptoed in here, arms full of gifts, like he was trying to appease a raging child? “I’m sorry,” he mutters, downtrodden, but it’s weak at best.

Look at Sam, he wants to say, knowing full well that Bobby is too afraid to do it. Look at what the world did to my brother, and tell me again that I should save it.

Again, Bobby leaves when he’s told. “You know where I’ll be.” When he’s gone, Dean throws the KFC bucket straight into the dead fireplace ashes. He had shoved his father once, when he was fifteen years old, in Sandusky, Michigan. He had talked Sam into asking Wendy McAdams to the seventh grade Valentines Day dance. He had been watching Sam and brace-face Wendy make doe-eyes at each other for two weeks. Sam had been so nervous when he asked, all pink cheeks and ears and long batted eyelashes. He was so crushed when, as if inevitably, Dad showed up on February thirteenth, and told them to pack their things. Dean begged him for one more night, to let Sam have this just once, and they could leave in the morning. Dad refused. Dean shoved him, and he stumbled into the brick of the motel wall. The expression on his face was much like Bobby’s was now— bewildered, gaping. Mutinous.

It isn’t until Bobby is long gone that he will allow himself to think that perhaps, like it or not, he has a point. He does not want to go anywhere. But then, how long will he be holding this vigil? There are two viable options: either he leaves here, and Sam does not, or he drinks himself to death at his brother’s side. And Dean has never left Sam. At least, not on purpose. He sits; opens the cola. He chugs down enough to make space to pour what’s left of his Jameson inside. It’s a refreshing change of taste to what’s been inside his mouth all this time. The bubbles shock his sinuses, alive compared to the rest of him.. He mulls over the new shade of gray conquering Sam’s nose.

“You know, when you were little— you couldn’t have been more than five— you started asking questions…”

He can’t leave without Sam. Several weeks ago, when Gordon had tried to pipe-bomb his baby brother, he’d sneered— “You’ve got your roadhouse connections; I’ve got mine.” The words echoed in Dean’s head now, making him dizzy. What connections does he have? Bobby, Ellen, and Jo are a motley crew, but so far they’re down two good men, and the worst is yet to come. They can’t win this. Dad tried for thirty years. He was stronger than Dean is. Dean doesn’t have thirty years left; not like this.

It’s a game of chess, and they’re in check four different ways.

He’s not leaving without Sam.

“I was trying to protect you…”

There are those who peddle solutions to these sorts of things, but no faith healer is strong enough for what he needs. Sam may believe that the power of love heals all, and it may have worked for him once, but Dean is working on a time limit. He needs quick results. No searching around, no trial and error. He needs it fast— and dirty, if necessary.

His options are limited, but the option exists.

“It’s like I had one job. I had one job.”

He can never see Bobby again. Right now, that seems okay. He could barely look Bobby in the eye a few hours ago, and he cannot imagine wanting to, anytime soon. Maybe later he’ll be sorry. Bobby won’t understand, but Sam will. Hell, in ten years, he won’t even know the difference. Who is to say that Dean would live another ten years, anyway?

_You’ve got your roadhouse connections; I’ve got mine._

“Now I guess I’m just supposed to let you down, too? How can I?”

Cruelly, his brother always seemed to have surefire answers for these things. Sam had always had the conviction that Dean couldn’t find. Believed in God. Believed in him. Believed Dean would look out for him.

Hell can’t be that much worse than this.

“Sammy… what am I supposed to do?”

He didn’t have a choice.

_“What am I supposed to do?!”_

• •

He leaves the crossroads with kiss-bruised lips and black fingernails digging into the steering wheel. The radio, for once, sits in static silence, crackling with the electric residue leftover from the meeting. His music had blared as he drove here. Master of Reality was still in the cassette. He had not destroyed it, yet; instead, he let the bile in his belly lead him where he needed to go. Now, the road is quiet and barren, well into the early morning, giving way to morning soon.

He marked the date; marked the time. One year.

The dirt cross-section he landed at was just over ten miles from the cabin. The drive feels longer the second time around. His heart squelches in his throat, aching fit to burst. Still, he has enough presence of mind to stop at a gas station along the way. He buys two Mr. Pibbs, his brother’s favorite. When he catches his own reflection in the window, it’s the first time he’s seen himself in nearly a week. The red ring around his eyes is more pronounced than he’d like. There’s haphazard stubble on his cheeks, and stains on his clothes that look like he just climbed out of a grave. In truth, he just got done digging one. His lips are swollen, spit-wet, and he rubs them furiously with the back of his hand as the cashier prints the receipt.

One year. One year. It makes his mouth dry to think about, but he can make it work, he thinks. After all, he just needs long enough to kill yellow-eyes, to close that chapter and get him out of the way, to make the past twenty-seven years mean something. One dead demon, and a few extra months after that, so that he can make it look like an accident. It’ll be fine. It’s enough. It’s worth it.

The sky breaks from blue to lavender as he drives. The road is mostly straight, and stretches long past his vision, framed by Colorado mountains on all sides. He speeds, odometer climbing steadily, until the flat land gives way to the woods and he has to slow down. The morning seems not to have touched the forest yet. Somewhere in the trees, a wolf bellows its last howl of the night. Dean clenches his jaw, imagining sharp teeth.

The cabin is unchanged as he pulls up. Inside the windows, it looks lightless and still. For a moment, his gut twists even harder. What if she had played him? Demons lie; that was the first rule that Bobby had taught him. Were they really bound to honor a deal made? What if she had kissed him and slipped straight back into hell, his soul signed away, with nothing in return? Anxious fingers crank the radio dial, plucking at the volume. The static in the receiver crescendos sharply, a harsh, screeching crackle that seems near constant. It, she , had been here, or something else had.

The door creaks as he opens it. The stale air hits him again, sharp and foul. Death and greasy chicken burning in the fireplace. From the doorway, he can see one long, denim-wrapped leg hanging off the bed, and one muddy boot on the floor. His heart pounds. His knees nearly buckle on his way to the bedroom. “Thank god.”

Sam’s lips part, dry and pink and alive. “Hey.”


End file.
